Summer Plans
by TerryJ
Summary: Jack&Jen&...Sue? Jack's ex comes to New York...Very helpful if you've read Please R


Ok so I tried but Dick Just won't give them to me...I mean I begged and pleaded but for some strange reasons he wants to keep his characters his so I really have no legal right to this story, its all his...Thanks to my readers D.F. and T.R.  
  
NOTE***Its not really mandatory but HIGHLY suggested to read "A Suprise Date" before reading this one and reading "Verdict Reading" is suggested but not nearly as imporant as the previously mentioned.***  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
"We are going to have so much fun. Are you sure you don't want to change your mind?"  
  
Jen Morgan smiled and shook her head at her dorm-mate Lily who was bouncing up and down on the edge of her bed. "I'm sure. I lived in California my whole life. It's nothing new to me. I have the chance to do something really cool this summer that is not only fun, but will help me in school and in the job market later on. It's a great opportunity."  
  
Lily grimaced. "Great opportunity? He's your Dad; you can get this opportunity whenever you want. Who needs a summer job at the District Attorney's office when their father is Jack McCoy? You're barely out of first year law and you already have more connections then most of us will ever have. Come to California with us; have fun rather then wither away in some musty office with crotchety old men."  
  
Jen sighed and stared hard at her friend. "First of all, he's my father, not my Dad."  
  
"Semantics," interrupted Lily.    
  
Jen glared at her before continuing, "Semantics or not, my name is Jen Morgan, not Jen McCoy. Most people in the world of law don't even have a clue that Hang 'Em High McCoy has a daughter. Even less know that I'm his daughter. I'm going to make it on my own. I plan on being very successful in criminal law and I don't plan on using Jack's name and reputation to get me where I want to go. He's offered me experience and advice which I recognize to be very valuable. I'm going to take full advantage of it while I can. I spent all of my undergrad summers taking road trips. Now I'm in law school and I'm going to take it seriously."  
  
"A little too seriously if you ask me," mumbled Lily under her breath.  
  
Jen raised her eyebrows. "What was that? Are you talking to me?" she asked in a mock threatening tone as she tossed her pillow at her friend, who retaliated in kind.    
  
After a short burst of pillow tossing and giggling, both girls sat with big smiles on their faces. After a few minutes Lily spoke up again.  
  
"What did your Mother say when you told her you were staying out east all summer?"  
  
Jen's smile faded. "I haven't talked to her about it yet. Jack said he would call her and broach the subject as if he hadn't discussed it with me. That way, if and when she got mad, he would take the heat then work on persuading her that it was a good thing. I don't care what she says, I'm staying. But he says he doesn't want to be the cause of a rift between my mother and me."  
  
"Wow. Your family is screwed up, but I guess it's in a healthy way. I don't think I could handle it," Lily said, shaking her head.  
  
"It's mostly good," replied Jen with a shrug.  
  
"Does she know how much time you've been hanging out with Jack? I mean, you said she didn't even want you to know him."  
  
"I don't know. I always tell her what I've been doing when I go home and on the phone, including the time I spend with him. She's never said anything positive or negative about it so I don't know how she feels. Apparently, the night after I first went to Jack's office, he went home and called her because he was furious that she hadn't told me about him. Later he said she 'had her reasons' and that I shouldn't be concerned about it. That's all I've gotten out of either of them. Whenever I brought it up, I got the sense that the phone call between them wasn't an enjoyable one."  
  
Lily smiled and shook her head again. "Well good luck with telling her about your plans for the summer. If she doesn't let you stay here, we'll always have a vacant seat in the van."  
  
"I'll keep that in mind. Why don't we go out now and celebrate the death of that con law final?" Jen suggested with a smile.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
  
  
When the door to his office slammed loudly, Jack spun around in his chair.  
  
"John James McCoy, you and I are going to have a talk – NOW!"  
  
He looked up into the livid face of his ex-wife and asked in surprise, "What are you doing here?"  
  
"What am I doing here? You're the one who 'needs to discuss Jen's summer plans'!"  
  
"I meant on the phone! I didn't expect you to hop on a plane!"  
  
"I was already on the plane this morning, coming to surprise my daughter and help her move home for the summer, when I got your voicemail. And what a nice surprise that was, getting off at LaGuardia and finding out that my ex suddenly wants to start parenting after 20 years and that I might as well not have come!"  
  
Jack, who had begun to get up, stood up straight and raised his voice. "Hold on one second!" he demanded.   
  
"I will not hold on one second! You've been putting off dealing with your daughter long enough. No more!"  
  
Jack got an angry glint in his eye as he took a deep breath and accused, "It wasn't my choice whether or not I had a relationship with my daughter. I tried, remember? I called, but you always said she was too busy to come to the phone. I wrote, I offered to come visit, I offered to bring her here. There was always a conflict. Remember?"  
  
"Well, you certainly gave up soon enough!" Sue shouted back bitingly.  
  
"If by giving up you mean slowing down after 15 years, then yes I did. I was busy and if you didn't want to give me the time of day, I wasn't going to waste more of my time. And I thought that if my daughter was growing up healthy and happy, that was all that mattered. Who cared if she never wrote me? Then, nine and half months ago, I come to find out she never wrote me because she was ignorant of my very existence! How dare you accuse me when you're the one who lied to her and me for all this time? No one is responsible but you!"  
  
Sue stepped forward and clenched her teeth. "Responsible? Who's the one who broke this family up to begin with?"  
  
Jack stepped closer as well. "And it's a good thing I did! How would it have been if we had done this every day for the past 20 years? How would it have been if I had given you a black and blue for each of our disagreements?"  
  
"Jesus Christ, Jack! When are you going to understand that you are not your father? One time – not even once! And you let it tear our family apart. Well I'll tell you something, you can't just come in playing mentor and expect to get back everything you missed!"  
  
Both of their eyes were beginning to mist but it did nothing to stop the ferocity of their anger.    
  
"I separated us by some paper, that you signed by the way, and a couple of blocks! Who was the one that separated us by a couple of thousand miles? Who's the one who separated us by lies? You tell me I'm not my father and that I had no reason to break up our family. You act civil in your letters and on the phone. But it's all a lie! The truth is you were too ashamed of me to tell my own daughter where she came from!"   
  
Sue lowered her voice and said, "I told you last year why I didn't tell her."  
  
Jack didn't appear to take notice of her change in tone as his own became more bitter. "Bullshit!"  
  
"Jack…"  
  
"No! I don't want to hear it! Do you have any idea what it felt like to sit here and realize that my own daughter didn't know me? Didn't care to know me? Do you have any idea how much that hurt? It crushed me to realize that I had sat by contentedly and allowed her life to pass me by because you made me believe that she and I maintained some sort of connection, weak as it was. Do you have any idea how insulting and painful that was? And do you have any idea how happy I am now that I've been able to forge a relationship with her, my only child? You haven't the slightest clue how relieved I was that she found a place in her heart to forgive me and let me   
  
in. She's made my life so much better just by being a part of it. I resent you so much for hoarding these feelings and keeping them from me. After all the pain, you expect me to believe that it was for her own good?  What am I supposed to take that to mean?"  
  
Unnoticed by either of the duelers, Jack's secretary had cautiously poked her head into his office. "Mr. McCoy?"   
  
"What?" he spat out, not even looking in her direction.  
  
"Your 3 o'clock meeting with..."  
  
"Screw them! They can wait! I'm not done here!"  
  
With that, the poor secretary darted from the doorframe.   
  
"I don't need to worry about catering to some defense attorney and his scum-of-the-universe client," he mumbled, glaring menacingly at the closed door.  
  
"Jack," Sue said, calling his attention back to her. "It wasn't you that I meant when I said it was for her own good. Frank and I went to parenting classes because he was so nervous about coming into a relationship with a child. They told us that to tell young children they have two fathers could potentially do psychological damage.  So we just told her Frank was her dad. We both intended to tell her about you later, but she was so like you without even knowing you. She despised lying and deceit.  When she found out about Santa Claus, she didn't speak to us for a solid week and a half! I could never gather up the courage to tell her about you. Eventually, it came to the point that we didn't see any reason to. Your letters were less frequent and you didn't come barging into our house, so we thought why bother going through the stress of telling her? I know now it wasn't the best decision I ever made. I'm sorry, Jack."   
  
By the end of her speech, she was speaking in a normal tone of voice and tears were freely flowing down both of their faces.  
  
Wiping her cheek, Sue added, "I want you to know that I am glad you and Jen have found each other. But I still don't like the idea of her spending the summer here."   
  
Seeming exhausted, Jack flopped onto his sofa. When he spoke, it was softer, almost with a touch of pleading in his voice. "Why not? Do you think she won't be safe in the city? Or is it me?"   
  
She sat beside him and looked him in the eyes as he leaned forward and searched her face for an answer.  
  
"She's my baby and I haven't seen her all year so part of it is maternal greed," she explained patiently. "Besides that, think about it: She's a first year law student.  She has barely even been introduced to res judicata and you want her to work in this office? You deal with murders, Jack, class A felonies. She's too young; she doesn't have the intellectual equipment to process it all. I don't know that she would be able to handle it emotionally. It's a huge responsibility to place on someone in her position. I know she's probably ecstatic about this plan of yours…" Taking note of the expression on his face, she said, "Don't give me that innocent look! I'm no fool. I know you and she planned this all out before you called me. But just because she may be excited doesn't mean she understands what it's going to be like. She has no idea! People with much more experience than her have been burned out while working along side you and others in your position. The fact that you're still at it after all these years even impresses me now. You can't possibly imagine that this type of environment is healthy for her."  
  
Jack sighed thoughtfully and chewed on his lower lip ever so slightly before replying softly and slowly, "What I do know is that she's a young woman now. At sometime or another she has to be able to make her own decisions. I also know that she's inherited her mother's brilliant legal mind and her father's love of the criminal justice system. Getting experience early will make the problems she's going to face later easier to take, understand, and handle. I wish I had been granted such an opportunity when I was starting out. She really wants to do this. Besides that, she loves the snow and hates the heat. It's inevitable that she will one day leave sunny California for good. You're going to have to learn to temper your maternal desires the same way I tempered my paternal desires. It's the way things are. It's all part of our daughter growing up."  
  
Sue furrowed her brow in thought. "I guess it would be best to have this conversation with her, wouldn't you say?"  
  
After a short silence he looked into her eyes and gave her a small smile, "You know, you're still very beautiful."  
  
"Jack…"  
  
"No, after what was said today, I want to be sure that you know I separated us because I loved you. I loved you so much I couldn't stand to hurt you. I'd rather live in pain for the rest of my life than know I was the cause of pain to either you or Jen. I loved you then and I still do."  
  
He moved to push a stray hair away from her face but she grabbed his wrist and held his hand back.  
  
"I know, Jack, but don't do this to us now. You're still a very attractive man in all aspects of the word and when you act like this, like you did way back when, I remember how much I loved you as well. How much I still love you. But I'm married, with a family. I can't allow myself to…"  
  
"I know," he interrupted. In almost a whisper he added, "I just wanted to be sure you knew."  
  
She lightly kissed the fingers of the hand that she held in her own. "I do know, Jack."    
  
"Aww shit!" he suddenly exclaimed.  
  
"What?!" demanded a bewildered Sue.  
  
"My 3 o'clock meeting…" he said, scrambling to his feet.  
  
"You said…"  
  
"I know what I said but I forgot that my 3 o'clock appointment is with Jen! You and I were yelling so loudly, people in China are probably having a hard time sleeping.  Sitting right down the hall, she probably heard every word."  
  
As he started towards the door, Sue got up and stood in front of him, putting one hand on his chest to stop him.   
  
"Hold on," she said in a whisper. "So what if she heard it all? Aren't you the one who thinks that we should reveal everything to her? Well, now she knows and we don't have to find a way to explain how we both feel."  
  
Jack grimaced but nodded his agreement. "So then what do we do now?"  
  
She smiled and quipped playfully, "I don't know, Dad. Why don't you tell me?"  
  
He shook his head a little sadly. "She doesn't call me Dad. Frank is her Dad; I'm just her father."  
  
"Is that what she calls you then? Father? Even when you're having those infamous ice cream shakes she raves about?"  
  
He looked at her thoughtfully. "No, she really doesn't call me anything to my face. I know she refers to me as, 'Jack, my biological Dad'. And once there was a pretty scary incident at the courthouse and in the heat of panic she called me 'Dad' but other then that … it's just 'Hey you'.  Not really much else."  
  
"Maybe we should call her in now," Sue suggested.   
  
"We've been quiet so long after all that shouting she probably thinks we killed each other," Jack noted with a grin.  
  
He opened his door and beckoned Jen inside.  
  
She smiled weakly as she stepped in slowly, looking from one parent to the other. She was more than a little unsure of herself since it was the first time she could remember seeing them together. Even though it had been quiet for a few moments, she knew they had been fighting loudly only moments before.  
  
She briskly crossed the room and gave her mother a hug. "Hey, Mom."   
  
Sue smiled and kissed her daughter's head. "Hey, there's my baby. It's good to see you."   
  
Jack smiled as well and busied himself by staring out the window. He suddenly felt very awkward. He had felt comfortable talking and even arguing with Sue, but he was suddenly extremely conscious of how his actions had appeared to Jen. It was slightly unsettling.  
  
Jack was suddenly pulled back to reality by his daughter's voice. "Hey you. Not gonna say hello?"   
  
He turned around and saw Jen sitting on his couch next to Sue, who still had her arms wrapped around her daughter.  
  
"Hmmm? Oh, of course. Hello," he smiled sheepishly. "Uh, your mother came out here to help you get set to go home for the summer."  
  
"Yeah, I know." Jen swallowed but said nothing as she looked from Jack to Sue, trying to get a read on what was going on inside their heads after overhearing the heated argument between the two.  
  
Jack tried hard to put on his best authoritative voice while he spoke but couldn't seem to look his daughter in those piercing eyes of hers. So he fidgeted with his ring as he said, "I told your mother what you and I had discussed. She doesn't agree. She thinks it may not be such a good idea. I personally don't know what to think right now. I do think we can all agree that the three of us need to talk before making any plans, though. I'm not saying the idea is off the table, only that we need to talk about it."    
  
Jen stood still, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. She knew she needed to have time to think about it all logically, and she also knew she needed to get her parents into a setting where she could be fairly confident that they wouldn't begin shouting again.  
  
"Well, it's Tuesday and although I'm really happy to see you, Mom, I came here expecting lunch. Why don't we all go out to eat while we figure this out?"  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Two hours later, Sue and Jen walked out of the cafe bursting with laughter. Jack followed a step behind looking playfully indignant.  
  
"Oh, come on! Give me a break – I had never changed a diaper before."  
  
"Give you a break? I've never changed a diaper either but I'm pretty sure I could manage it with out a complete disaster. How do you dress yourself in the mornings?" Jen got out between giggles.  
  
"You think it's funny but you never saw yourself as a baby. You were squirmy. Things become a lot more difficult when the subject is uncooperative. I'll bet your mom never told you the pajamas story," he said, looking knowingly at Sue who suddenly became quite flustered.  
  
"Oh, that story is hardly worth telling. Jack is just trying to shift the attention away from himself. We don't need to talk about me right now."  
  
At that they began laughing anew. After a few minutes, when they had all calmed down, Jack spoke. "I have work to do at my office. I wasn't expecting to be gone this long. Jen, why don't you take your mother back to your dorm, get all your stuff together, and I'll drive you both to the airport in a couple of hours."  
  
Jen nodded. "Okay, but I was thinking, since I'm coming back here early to work with you in July, can I leave some of my stuff at your apartment so I don't have to drag it all over the place?"  
  
"Of course," Jack smiled. He stepped to the curb in an attempt to wave down a cab. "I'll keep it safe awaiting your return."  
  
When the taxi pulled up and Jackhad opened the door for them, Sue paused and looked him in the eye before getting into it.  
  
  "Thanks, John. You're a good guy."  
  
He swallowed and stared at his toes before looking back at her. "Thank you, Susan. Today has made me feel better about a lot of things that have been eating at me lately."  
  
"Yeah, me too." After a pause she smiled and said, "Sevenish then?"  
  
"I'll be there."  
  
"Okay," she replied before he closed the door.  
  
Jen sighed and smiled. Throughout lunch she had sensed that things were genuinely relaxed but the last interaction between her parents made her feel especially happy. She felt like she no longer had to separate her worlds; she didn't have to tiptoe around when it came to talking about love and marriage. Her parents liked each other and that was good enough for her.    
  
She sat back in the taxi and smiled. She couldn't wait to get back to the dorm and tell Lily about her new summer plans. 


End file.
